Umut Ozkirimli's analysis of nationalism theories and explanations

International Relations: Nationalism

Author Umut Ozkirimli makes an important point at the outset of his book: though nationalism has been around for more than two hundred years, serious scholarly examinations of the "origins and spread" of nationalism did not begin until the First World War, and began to seriously pick up momentum only after WWII. Why this is a fact is up for discussion, but perhaps, a naive reader might surmise, it could be that the fanatical nationalism put into play by Hitler - to brow-beat his nation into believing Aryan "master race" lies and that the mass slaughter of Jews was justified - stimulated a wealth of academic analysis into the field of nationalism. But a quick glance at the book's Index reveals that the name of "Hitler" does not appear in this book, and "Nazism" appears twice. And thus, one's narrow preconceptions of "nationalism" are severely amended through the reading of this very erudite, didactic, "in your face" tome.

What is clear (Chapter 4) is that Ozkirimli understands all the theories of nationalism; that he goes to great lengths to help the reader do the same, and he leaves no stone unturned in sharing his view of others'analysis. After summarizing (pp. 120-121) the approaches to nationalism of Breuilly (nationalism as a form of politics), and Brass (ethnic groups are but political resources "for elites who are engaged in an endless struggle for power and/or economic advantage"), and lastly, Hobsbawm (nationalism as "social engineering" invented by "ruling elites" who were threatened by "the incursion of the masses into politics"), Ozkirimli divides critiques into "general" and "specific" categories. And this is where the book shines: arguing his perspective, and bringing others' views to light, Ozkirimli offers high quality narrative and takes no prisoners. In his sub-head called "These Theories Cannot Explain Why So Many People Are Prepared to Die for Their Nations" (page 123), Ozkirimli addresses precisely the point this reader was thinking throughout all the intellectual twists and turns of theories presented. One can't help but agree with Ozkirimli (while he agrees with Anthony Smith): the failure to explain why so many millions go to their deaths in nationalistic movements "stems from the 'top-down' method..." Of analysis; the concentration "...on elite manipulation of 'the masses' rather than on the dynamics of mass mobilization."

Meanwhile, Anthony Smith's book seeks to separate "nationalism" from "national identity" - the former, mass citizen-nations, "can only emerge in the era of industrialism and democracy," and the latter featuring homeland, "common myths and historical memories," a mass public culture, legal rights for all and a shared economy.

Smith goes to great lengths to define every aspect of every concept that contributes even in a small way to nationalism. And he points out that Gellner (whose ideas and work appear on 44 pages of Ozkirimli's book, but in only 3 pages of Smith's book), the "modernist," says nationalism (page 71) "is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness; it invents nations where they do not exist," albeit it does need some "pre-existing differentiating marks to work on..." That statement is disputable, given the nationalism that has run its course in the 20th Century. Did Hitler awaken Germany to self-consciousness in the late 1930s, adroitly exploiting the German common man's resentment for the outcome of WWI? The answer has to be yes. Did the Nazis become highly skilled at stirring up fiery extreme patriotic emotions among the German citizenry against not only those who sold out Germany at the Treaty of Versailles, but against non-Caucasians? The answer again, is yes. And so Gellner is wrong at that end of his definition, and Smith is correct (page 74) when he writes that "nationalism is primarily a cultural doctrine...a political ideology with a cultural doctrine at its centre."